


But if the bright lights don't receive you (you should turn yourself around and come on home)

by Mellaithwen



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Allergic reaction to alien field of lights, Community: then_theres_us, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-28
Updated: 2010-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellaithwen/pseuds/Mellaithwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another time, in another place, on another planet, instead of a field of flowers, there’s a field of lights. What the Doctor doesn't know yet, is that he's allergic to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But if the bright lights don't receive you (you should turn yourself around and come on home)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for challenge 35 at then_theres_us
> 
> title from Matchbox 20's back catalogue ;)

In another time, in another place, on another planet, instead of a field of flowers, there’s a field of lights. Great, big, bright neon orbs of light bouncing up as high as their roots will let them and floating back down to earth. They sparkle so brightly and hum to the sound of the surrounding cities as though each connected and united by the atmosphere around them.

“They’re alive, organic life forms made completely of light, the people of this planet say that stars fall and get stuck into the soil, and that the only way they can get back out is to grow back bigger and stronger and one day they’ll make their way back to the skies.”

“Is that true?”

“Sadly no, stars don’t work like that, not even in the furthest reaches of the galaxy.”

“So what are they?”

“Plants…sort of, they just happen to be unlike any other plant anywhere else in the universe, that’s all.”

“You don’t know, do you?” Rose smiles.

“I can honestly say, that I really, really, _reeeeeally_ have no idea,” he grins, throwing his arms around her waist and twirling her around, “but isn’t that just brilliant?”

 _Yes,_ she thinks, _if not a little bit terrifying._

* * *

The Doctor hasn’t been here in years, hundreds and hundreds of years. He’s never seen any field like it, and what he has yet to find out, is that he’s quite allergic to these wonderful orbs of light that grow out of the ground.

_But more on that later._

They spend their first night lying in the fields surrounded by the lights. If the Doctor feels any change in his wellbeing he doesn’t take any notice, and simply lies there, next to Rose—enamoured by the soft glows cast on her skin, gold and pink and green and blue. Each colour more beautiful than the next when reflecting off of his Rose.

“What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.” He says innocently as though his world didn’t revolve around her every being.

* * *

As the Doctor and his companion wander the streets of this new and bright city, they see that the flowers are in each and every doorway, and their light brightens the darkness so much so that it’s a strain to see the stars in the sky. Rose thinks it’s like being in the centre of London. Standing in Piccadilly Circus unable to see past the bright lights of the advertisements and street lamps and headlights. Sometimes unaware that it’s even dark.

The Doctor starts to tell her a story about New New New New New York, but stops, and stutters and sneezes and frowns, _um, I…._

“Doctor?”

“My head’s gone a little fuzzy.” He tells her in a tone quite uncharacteristic to his normal giddy self. He has unconsciously reached out to the wall behind him next to what Rose thinks might be a café. “What was I saying?”

“You were telling me about New New New—are you alright? You look a little pale…”

She’s about to suggest sitting when instead he decides to slide down the wall onto the floor. She crouches next to him and the Doctor continues to stare down at his hands, forehead creased in thought as he attempts to diagnose himself, noting his symptoms as best he can. He just feels a little light headed, a little weak all of a sudden. Like the flu, or hay fever, or a strange combination of the two—not that he’s had either in centuries, and not that they’ve ever been the same as the human interpretation.

“Maybe we should head back to the TARDIS.” Rose suggests, more concerned with his silence than his pale pallor or sudden preference to sitting instead of running, or jumping, or skipping.

The Doctor merely nods, keeping his mouth closed as he staggers to his feet as though he were afraid he might—

He throws up inside of what he hopes is a bin, wishing he were more aware to appreciate Rose rubbing the back of his neck soothingly. He thinks it might be the best part about this strange feeling of being ill—her big brown eyes staring so lovingly and her right hand catching the hair at the back of his head, tracing circles in his skin. To Rose it’s warm and feverish but the Doctor is shivering in her hold.

When they get back to the TARDIS the Doctor insists that it’s nothing and that he’d be fine in a little while. One smashed teacup later and liquid dripping through the grates of the floor say otherwise.

* * *

The days that follow do so in a monotonous blur. Rose can’t fly the TARDIS on her own, and the TARDIS can’t fly the TARDIS on its own. The Doctor is certainly in no condition to do so, and even if he were, Rose is relatively sure that the shaking tremors of the ship in motion won’t help the Doctor’s newfound nausea.

So they wait. Rose sits, and makes tea, and soup, and more tea, and the Doctor alternates between whining and shivering and sleeping so very much.

He tells her he’s fine, and she glares.

He tells her, that while he may not be fine, he is certainly not at death’s door, and with a little rest, he _will_ be fine. Eventually.

That she can accept, though getting the Doctor to rest is an arduous task in itself. Every five minutes he shoots out of bed (normally falling over in the process) and remembers something that needs doing, or fiddling with. It takes so much effort out of him that he needs more and more sleep.

Sometimes she catches him just watching her with a tiny smile, and sometimes his frustration gets the best of him.

It’s one of these times that leads to Rose walking away from him (even if it’s only for a little while. And even if it’s only for his own good.)

* * *

The Doctor, pushing himself too quickly, attempts to leave his bed and instantly falls to the floor. The fact that Rose is by his side beginning to help him up only adds to the niggling in the back of his head that says he’s weak, and being childish.

“I can walk on my own two feet, you know.” He croaks, his throat dry, lips cracked.

“My eyes say otherwise.” Rose jokes quietly, carefully. The Doctor doesn’t respond, at all. He merely sits on the edge of the bed waiting for the nausea to pass. He stands up too quickly and begins to fall once more. Rose admonishes him for not listening and he snaps. He’s not a child, he doesn’t need mothering, and he just wants to be left alone.

Since when? The sane part of his brain mutters, and is ignored.

He forgets that she’s been so wonderfully kind and caring and patient. He forgets how much he secretly enjoys the attention and concern, the love. He forgets it all, and all he can think about is how dependant he’s being. A Timelord who cannot stand without help, can barely walk, and needs _sleep_ of all things.

“Just go.” He finishes, and hears only a weary sigh before the sound of trainers leaving the TARDIS. All of a sudden the loneliness hits him and he feels it weighing him down—working in tandem with exhaustion to force him into lying back on the bed.

In an hour, Rose will return from her walk. She will check on the Doctor, who will be sound asleep, and she will brush the strands of hair away from his somewhat clammy forehead. Her fingers will linger a little longer than usual, and she will remark to herself on how strange it is to be watching him sleep so soundly. She will check on him throughout the night and well into the next day, wherein she will notice with relief that his fever has broken, and his skin colour no longer resembles snow.

The Doctor will remain completely oblivious until the end of the week wherein he will wake up feeling far more like his normal self, _alone_ , and wishing Rose were there.

* * *

On the last day Rose wakes up from her unplanned nap to find the Doctor gone. She walks into the town and back and cannot find him, but as she returns from her outing she sees him there; standing in front of the TARDIS with his hands behind his back.

In the distance the fields of strange flowers sparkle in the sunlight. What light is lost in daytime, is made up for in the sheer reflections darting back and forth, bouncing off of one another as though each patch were a chandelier growing up out of the ground.

Rose, however, is far more interested in the Doctor.

He’s upright, and she thinks that’s at least an improvement, and he seems a lot happier than he did when she was practically banished out of the ship two days ago.

“Hello stranger.” Rose greets as she leans on the TARDIS doors, and the Doctor turns to face her.

“Hello yourself.”

“I was worried—why didn’t you wake me up? How are you feeling?”

“Better, thanks to you. I’m sorry I snapped, it was rude and horrid, and you more than deserve these.” He presents her with the bouquet he had been hiding behind his back and Rose gasps as she stares at the collection of lights before her.

She considers berating him a little, seeing as she didn’t half deserve to be shouted at, but recognises the tiredness in the Doctor’s eyes and the slight strain in his face of keeping the door open to the atmosphere that clearly hates him.

“They’re beautiful.” She whispers instead, adoring each and every orb of light of every colour spread out within the bunch.

“You like them then?”

“Oh, of course I do!” She hugs him, and his lopsided smile becomes a fully-fledged grin. “But, you’ll get ill again! I can’t believe you risked touching them, let alone bringing them into the TARDIS...”

“They’re fake, I hope you don’t mind.”

“They sell fakes?”

“In every culture, in every civilisation, throughout the great big, über giant universe, one can always find forgeries of something or other.”

“How sweet.” Rose smirks, eyebrow arched.

“Oh just get in, I fancy Venice, what do you think?”

Rose steps into the TARDIS and pretends to think for a moment, twirling her hair in her hand and doing her best impression of coy as she can muster.

“Real Venice, or _fake_ Venice?”

“Hmm I deserve that. But I mean real Venice. Gondolas and everything. Strange way of transportation granted, but who am I to judge?” He says as he gives the console a happy pat as he finds a route to their destination through time and space. Rose smiles and finds a spot for her fake flowers. She considers how strange it is to be allergic to light when to so many the Doctor embodies the light in the darkness. _Hope._

She then considers the fact that while the flowers he had bought were quite fake; the Doctor would have had to expose himself to streets of the real thing before finding adequate forgeries.

In the console room the Doctor sneezes, and upon hearing another cup of tea shatter on the ground, Rose prepares herself for another long week.

 

 

 _\--Fin_.

 


End file.
